The Dallas Mavericks (16-9) bowed out of the NBA Cup with a 118-104 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder (19-5) on Tuesday. The 14-point margin doesn’t even begin to accurately depict the size of the egg the Mavericks laid at the Paycom Center, though.
The swarming Thunder defense gave Dallas fits all night long, as Oklahoma City held Dallas 15 points under its scoring average for the season. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander went off for 39 points on 15-of-23 shooting, including 5-of-9 from 3-point range. He also grabbed eight rebounds and took away three steals in the win.
Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving combined to shoot just 12-of-29 in the loss. Irving scored 17, and Dončić added 16 and 11 boards but turned the ball over five times in the loss. Tuesday night was the first time this year any team has held both Dončić and Irving under 20 points. They shot just Here are six stats that tell the tale of the Mavs’ no-show in Oklahoma City.
15-1: Early first-quarter Thunder run
Dallas landed the first punch of the game, as Irving and Klay Thompson each connected on their first 3-point attempts, vaulting the Mavs to an 8-0 lead less than two minutes of the action. The Thunder responded with some sharpshooting of their own to score 15 of the game’s next 16 points to take a 15-9 lead with seven minutes left in the first. Gilgeous-Alexander hit a smooth step-back 3-pointer, and Lugenz Dort hit two more on back-to-back possessions in the sequence.
The two teams traded the lead back and forth for much of the rest of the first until the turnovers started compounding for the Mavs late in the quarter. Oklahoma City took a 32-24 lead at the end of one after late 3-balls from Alex Caruso and Gilgeous-Alexander. SGA torched the Mavs for 16 points on 5-of-9 shooting in the frame.
7: Mavericks first-quarter turnovers
Somehow, during the Mavs’ 11-1 stretch coming into the game, they were significantly worse about holding onto the ball than during the team’s 5-7 start to the season. Dallas was 17th in the NBA in turnover rate in their last 12 games entering the NBA Cup quarterfinal. Meanwhile, the Thunder entered the game first in steals (12.1) in the NBA. They forced the Mavs into seven first-quarter turnovers on Tuesday and scored 12 points off those turnovers.
Dončić turned it over three times for the Mavs, twice on those long quarterback passes in the backcourt to a streaking teammate off a defensive rebound. Clearly, that tendency made it onto the Thunder’s scouting reports. Turning the ball over seven times in any quarter is atrocious, and equal parts careless decision-making on the Mavs’ part and tough defense from Oklahoma City that combined to throttle the Mavs’ offensive rhythm through much of the first half.
The Thunder outscored the Mavs 36-17 off opponent turnovers on the night, and that’s precisely why they were able to dominate Dallas despite shooting a worse percentage from both the field and from 3-point land.
1-of-7: Luka Dončić first-half shooting
Dončić, who came into the game on the heels of being named Western Conference Player of the Week, is a chess master at beating the high double team, usually. But the Oklahoma City defensive attack really bothered Dončić in the first half. The Thunder forced the ball out of Dončić’s hands as he tried to initiate the Dallas offense and prevented him from penetrating deep enough to get any of those patented lob looks from it, either. He rarely found an open look and shot just 1-of-7 from the field (0-for-3 from 3-point range) for a whopping two points in the first half. He also turned the ball over four times. The Thunder defense sent six different defenders at Dončić throughout the game and held him to his lowest point total in a game since he scored 15 in 28 minutes in a 113-106 loss at the New Orleans Pelicans on March 8, 2023.
25: Naji Marshall and Klay Thompson first-half scoring
Dallas Mavericks v Oklahoma City Thunder Naji Marshall #13 of the Dallas Mavericks drives to the basket during the game against the Oklahoma City Thunder during the Emirates NBA Cup Quarterfinals on December 10, 2024 at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Photo by Zach Beeker/NBAE via Getty Images
The guys around Dončić picked him up in the first half, especially Naji Marshall off the bench. Marshall shot 6-of-7 from the field for 14 points in 15 minutes to help keep the Mavs’ head above water. Tuesday’s game at Oklahoma City was Marshall’s first game back after missing the last four with the illness that is somehow still working its way through the Mavericks’ locker room. He hit a turn-around jumper, then drove for a tough floater in traffic late in the quarter to keep the Mavs connected, down 57-51 with 1:45 left in the first half. Thompson hit a corner 3-ball the next time down to pull the Mavs to within 57-54 at halftime. Thompson added 11 in the first half on 4-of-8 shooting and 3-of-6 from behind the arc. Marshall and Thompson scored 19 apiece in the loss.
16-4: Thunder run to open third quarter
The Mavericks were down just three points at the break, but the Thunder showed Dallas just how precarious a position that can be, as they opened the third quarter on a 10-2 run that gave OKC its first double-digit lead of the game. Gilgeous-Alexander keyed the scoring spurt, finding little creases in the Dallas defense for open jumpers and driving lanes on demand as the quarter progressed.
He found Dort for a pull-up jumper with 7:45 left in the third to give Oklahoma City a 67-56 lead. Then he hit his third 3-pointer of the game after an offensive rebound by Cason Wallace to give the Thunder a 70-58 advantage. Wallace’s 3-pointer the next time down opened up a 15-point lead, sent the Thunder crowd into a frenzy and forced a Dallas timeout. At one point midway through the third, Gilgeous-Alexander had piled up 29 points, to nine from Dončić and Irving. Combined. That’s right — he was tripling up two of the best scorers in the NBA by himself.
20-of-50 (40%): Oklahoma City 3-point shooting
The Thunder came into the game averaging just over 13 3-point makes per game. Isaiah Joe’s long ball from nearby Norman at the third-quarter buzzer was Oklahoma City’s 16th of the game. The 20 they made against the Mavs is a new season-high mark. At no point did the Mavs make any defensive adjustments to account for the Thunder’s added volume from deep.
Oklahoma City was just inevitable in this one, and the Thunder took a 90-73 lead, their biggest of the game, into the fourth quarter. Gilgeous-Alexander, Dort, Wallace and Kenrich Williams all connected on three or more 3-pointers for the Thunder in the win. Dallas was able to cut the lead to single digits on two occasions in the fourth, but they never had enough in the tank for a proper comeback attempt.